Beach access is above water, for now

Rudy Romero, maintenance supervisor with the OC Parks, cleans up the walkway at Poche Beach in San Clemente. Sand blocked the outlet for a runoff canal and covered the walkway with about a foot of water. A bulldozer cleared the sand and let the water flow again.PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

For the first time since June 25, a bulldozer cleared a path at Poche Beach on Friday so waters from a flood-control channel blocked by sand could drain into the ocean.

In recent weeks, residents say, a pond in the blocked channel rose so high that a pedestrian catwalk that runs through the channel was underwater. "It's been knee-high for at least three weeks," said resident Paige Foreman. "We've had no access to our beach."

The catwalk runs beneath a railroad bridge that parallels Coast Highway on the border of Dana Point and San Clemente. In the flood-control channel, bacteria from urban runoff, stagnant water trapped in the pond and birds that hang out there have made beachgoers wary of trying to wade through the submerged catwalk.

People have resorted to illegally crossing the railroad track, the only other way to reach Poche Beach. "People were dragging their coolers across the tracks," said Councilman Lori Donchak, who heads a San Clemente task force trying to improve railroad safety and establish a Quiet Zone along San Clemente's coastal rail corridor.

What Donchak saw at Poche was unacceptable, she said, so she contacted County Supervisor Patricia Bates. "Pat Bates was very responsive," Donchak said.

The bulldozer arrived Friday but could only work in a limited area, constrained by the presence of grunion eggs, officials said. The pond didn't drain fully, but it was enough to make the catwalk walkable.

Paige Foreman remained frustrated. "We've been calling on a weekly basis, for months," she said. Clearing the channel is needed at least every two weeks, she said, whenever wave action builds up a sand berm on the beach to form a pond.

Leslie Ray, coastal district manager for OC Parks, said the county has a permit to clear the channel twice a year. She said the county is working on a permit to bulldoze as needed. Aliso Beach has such a permit, allowing a bulldozer up to once a week if needed.

It's an involved permit process and Ray said an environmental consultant is assisting. Foreman said she was dismayed to learn that no application has been filed, as she had been told otherwise.

There is general agreement that the channel needs to be kept open. The county is preparing to activate a $3 million treatment system at the mouth of Poche Creek to clean urban runoff that flows down the channel. In recent years Poche has frequently been listed in Heal the Bay's annual "beach bummer" report card.

Unless the channel is kept open, Foreman says the treatment won't matter, because the cleaned water will sit in a pond, stagnate and collect duck deposits.

Ray said the county does ask special permission to use a bulldozer more often and has deployed it at Poche six times this year. The county had to request authorization from the Army Corps of Engineers for Friday's work and had a biologist monitoring for presence of grunion eggs.

"We don't allow heavy equipment to roll over the sand where the eggs are incubating," Ray said. Also monitored is the western snowy plover, a small bird.

The bulldozer could return Monday or Tuesday if needed, Ray said. Tuesday begins a three-night grunion run, last one of the season, but after that, the bulldozer will be easier to arrange, she said.

Rudy Romero, maintenance supervisor with the OC Parks, cleans up the walkway at Poche Beach in San Clemente. Sand blocked the outlet for a runoff canal and covered the walkway with about a foot of water. A bulldozer cleared the sand and let the water flow again. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
OC Parks uses a bulldozer to clear sand that blocked the outlet for a runoff canal at Poche Beach in San Clemente. The rising water covered a walkway that runs through the channel until the bulldozer cleared the outlet. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Visitors watch with a county employee as a bulldozer clears sand that blocked the outlet for a runoff canal at Poche Beach in San Clemente. The rising water covered a walkway with about a foot of water until the bulldozer cleared the outlet. The walkway goes from PCH under train tracks and to the beach. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Water flows to the ocean after the Orange County Parks department used a bulldozer to clear sand that blocked the outlet for a runoff canal at Poche Beach in San Clemente. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A bulldozer clears sand that blocked the outlet for a runoff canal at Poche Beach in San Clemente. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A Beach Road resident watches as a bulldozer clears sand that blocked the outlet for the runoff canal at Poche Beach in San Clemente. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A warning sign sunbathes at Poche Beach in San Clemente. The county has had ongoing problems with beach pollution and a drainage canal at the beach. PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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